Watched Journal: October 2025
Before you could say 'Oorah' I signed up for the delayed entry program, received some Marine schwag and a ship date to Parris Island in the fall. I broke the news to my parents. My mother was not pleased. My father, tellingly, was proud of me. For him, my becoming a Marine was me being a man . But as the news traveled to the rest of my family, they were horrified. The War on Terror was red hot as battles raged in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I was aware of the situation, I paid attention to the news. I had a cousin in the Air Force, deployed in the Middle East. Yet I was smitten with this new sense of community, hanging out with Marines and fellow recruits for Saturday drills. Being among "the few, the proud" was intoxicating. I proudly wore my corps t-shirt and when I vomited after a half-mile sprint, I trained harder. T.I.'s 'Trap Muzik' played on my car stereo as I drove one of my fellow recruits home - he was still in high school and lived in a small shack.
I spent a scorching summer day down in Ohio, for a field day with hundreds of recruits from across the Midwest. There was a pull-up contest and MREs on the bus ride. I was startled by a flaming gay kid; I wasn't out, or even knew what I was yet. I came home with a wicked sunburn and slopped aloe vera on my face.
And then Michael Moore changed my life. My friend Matt wanted to hang out and watch Fahrenheit 9/11. Slouched in the theater, I became sick to my stomach when Moore documents teenagers from Flint being recruited by the armed forces. I realized everything they said to me was from a script. As these young men went off to war in the Middle East, some returned with missing limbs or worse. I watched in terror as they suffered in hospital beds - that could be me. I made an about face and deciding to stay in college.
The Netflix series Boots, based upon Greg Cope White's 2016 memoir 'The Pink Marine,' brought back memories of my brief flirtation with the Corps. Boots follows Cameron Cope (Miles Heizer), a closeted high school graduate with no plans on the horizon, who joins his best friend Ray MacAffey (Liam Oh) and enlists. Ray is the only one that knows Cam is gay, something that proves increasingly difficult to disguise in boot camp.
But this isn't a tragic coming out story, Boots is funny, more Stripes than Full Metal Jacket as Parris Island becomes the Lord of the Flies filtered through the Goonies. All of these young men are far from home, miss their families and are just trying to make it through the gauntlet as the menacing drill instructors put them through the ringer. The show is set in 1990, the peak of the AIDS crisis and before 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' would allow homosexuals to serve in the military discreetly.
As the show progresses, we learn that Cam isn't the only one hiding a secret. Many times the homophobes turn out to be big queens, often taken down by their own self loathing. Whatever it means to be a "real man" - Cam discovers that he can rise to the occasion, he's stronger than ever thought he was. I couldn't help but admire his resolve as he reached the finish line to become a Marine. He should be proud - in more ways than one.
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